Bob Dylan’s Whole Life in 30 Minutes

In a rambling, comprehensive and surprisingly biting speech, Bob Dylan gave a half-hour speech of a lifetime on Friday. Here’s what he had to say.

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Last Friday night, in a remarkable speech that ran more than 30 minutes and was the talk of the industry over Grammy weekend, music legend Bob Dylan offered deeply personal thanks to a career-spanning chorus of friends and fellow musicians, colorfully smacked down a few others along the way, eviscerated decades of music critics’ complaints about his voice and his enigmatic nature, and stunned many by revealing the musical inspirations behind some of his most well-known songs.

In a rambling ode that crisscrossed a century of American music, Dylan delighted an audience of 3,000 musicians and industry veterans gathered in Los Angeles to honor him as Musicares’ 2015 Person of the Year. Musicares is the non-profit arm of the Grammys that aids impoverished musicians during times of financial and medical crisis.

The speech capped a star-studded musical tribute to Dylan, 73, by a wide variety of artists whom he handpicked to interpret his songs. The show, which was not broadcast, reportedly included performances by Beck (“Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat”); Jackson Browne (“Blind Willie McTell”); Bruce Springsteen (“Knocking on Heaven’s Door”); Neil Young (“Blowin’ In the Wind”); Jack White (“One More Cup of Coffee”); Crosby, Stills and Nash (“Girl From the North Country”); Tom Jones (“What Good Am I?”); Willie Nelson (“Senor”) and Los Lobos (“On a Night Like This”). This piece is based on a transcript of the speech published by Rolling Stone.

The diversity of the lineup proved to highlight a key theme in Dylan’s subsequent speech, in which he offered surprisingly tender thanks to Peter, Paul and Mary, who turned “Blowin’ In the Wind” into a hit song and—Dylan explained—taught him a lot about the mutability of a song, and how reinterpretation can open up myriad new possibilities in a song.

“[I] have to mention some of the early artists, who recorded my songs very, very early, without having to be asked,” Dylan told the audience. “Just something that they felt was right for them. I’ve got to say thank you to Peter, Paul and Mary, who I knew all separately before they became a group. I didn’t even think of myself as writing songs for others to sing but it was starting to happen and it couldn’t have happened to—or with—a better group,” he said.

“They took a song of mine that… was buried on one of my records and turned it into a hit song. Not that way that I would have done it,” Dylan intoned in his inimitable style. “They straightened it out.”

The artist also offered a surprisingly sweet appreciation for other sugary 1960s pop groups like The Turtles, The Byrds and Sonny & Cher, who also turned early Dylan songs into top pop hits. He poked fun at both the bands and himself.

In 2004, Dylan baffled virtually everyone when he appeared in a “Victoria’s Secret” television commercial with angel Adriana Lima and others, allowing the lingerie company to license his song “Love Sick.” The unexpected move prompted now-familiar outrage at Dylan for “selling out,” with one writer ruefully noting that “forty years ago, [Dylan’s] motto was ‘Money doesn’t talk, it swears.’ Today, it’s ‘stretch-lined demi-bra with lace.’”“Their versions of the songs were like commercials,” he explained, to laughter in the audience. “But I didn’t really mind that because 50 years later my songs were being used in the commercials. So that was good, too. I was glad it happened, and I was glad they’d done it.”

After thanking his earliest interpreters, Dylan firmly placed his own career within a contrasting lineage of American music. It all grew out of the folk songwriting tradition, Dylan said, and his work was embodied by the songs of his true heroes. There was Sun Studios’ legendary sound man Sam Phillips, he said, who discovered Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. He called Nina Simone an “overwhelming artist” who “validated everything I was about” when she recorded his songs. He wished the Staples Singers had done the same. He cited Joan Baez as “a woman of devastating honesty” and Johnny Cash as “a hero of mine.”

Dylan recounted the famous March 1964 letter to the editor that Cash, already a country legend at 32, wrote to Sing Out! magazine, a highly-influential folk magazine which had published a complaint-filled “open letter” to Dylan. Sing Out! was, to 1960s folk purists, roughly what the New Yorker is to many self-styled urban intellectuals. The magazine’s broadside accused Dylan, 23, of going Hollywood and abandoning his roots in strictly traditional folk music.

Cash, who had never met Dylan at that point, penned a powerful defense of the young artist that concluded, memorably, with “SHUT UP and let him sing!”

Years later, in a full-page ad in a 1998 Billboard magazine, Cash and producer Rick Rubin would again slam the Nashville establishment scene, which had similarly shunned the country legend late in his career.

Dylan spoke reverently of Cash in his speech on Friday night, infusing his tribute with prose that evoked the Bible, the book that had proven perhaps most precious to both men throughout their careers.

“Johnny was an intense character,” Dylan said in his speech. “And he saw that people were putting me down playing electric music, and he posted a letter to magazines scolding people, telling them to shut up and let him sing. In Johnny Cash’s world—hardcore Southern drama—that kind of thing didn’t exist. Nobody told anybody what to sing or what not to sing. I’m always going to thank him for that. Johnny Cash was a giant of a man—the man in black. And I’ll cherish the friendship we had until the day there is no more days.”

Then, Dylan did something extraordinary: He began to demonstrate preciselyhow some of the hundreds of songs he heard and sang as a young folk artist would beget some of his own most legendary lyrics.

It was Cash’s groundbreaking ballad “How High’s The Water, Mama?” with its signature narrative refrain that inspired Dylan’s own groundbreaker “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

“I wrote [“It’s Alright”] with that [“How High”] reverberating in my head,” Dylan said, astonishing some audience members. “I still ask, ‘How high’s the water, mama?’”

He went on to tie “John Henry” to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key to the Highway” to “Highway 61,” and “Deep Ellum Blues” to “Just Like Tom Thumb Blues.”

The revelations called to mind charges in recent years that some of his lyrics and parts of his memoir, “Chronicles,” were plagiarized. Dylan’s songwriting technique was rather vigorously defended by literary scholars last summer when the issue reemerged.

“These songs didn’t come out of thin air. I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth—there was a precedent. For three or four years all I listened to were folk songs. I went to sleep singing folk songs. If you sang ‘John Henry’ as many times as me,” he said, and then quoted a stanza from the traditional folk song, “If you’d have sung that song as many times as I did—you’d have written ‘How many roads must a man walk down?’ too.”

Dylan went on to quote lines from Big Bill Broonzy’s blues hit “Key to the Highway” that he said begat his own “Highway 61,” thrilling music aficionados.

He said he’d sung so many folk songs that began with a variation of “come all ye” that it began to bleed into his own songs, including “Come gather ‘round people/wherever you roam” from “The Times They Are A-Changing.”

“You’d have written them too,” he insisted.

“There’s nothing secret about it. You just do it subliminally and unconsciously. All these songs are connected,” he said.

“Don’t be fooled. I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way. I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. Some got angered, others loved them.”

For all of his appreciation for his predecessors and colleagues, Dylan took a few amusing swipes at some who he said didn’t like or get his songs. This included, strangely, country star Merle Haggard and Tom T. Hall, a vanilla country songwriter responsible for the 1968 pop hit “Harper Valley PTA.”

Then Dylan set off on a lyrical riff that just begs for a song of its own: “Tom loves little baby ducks, slow moving trains and rain. He loves old pickup trains and little country streams. Sleeping without dreams. Bourbon in a glass. Coffee in a cup. Tomatoes on the vine, and onions.”

His individual targets may have seemed random, but his ire was focused squarely on the Nashville music establishment of the 1960s and 1970s (and beyond). His comments channeled decades of tension between Nashville’s record industry executives and radio DJs, and renegade artists like Nelson, Cash and Dylan—who for years felt shut out from all important country radio play.

Dylan recalled listening to a Hall song on the radio while he was in Nashville recording an album.

“He was talking about all the things he loves—an everyman kind of song, trying to connect with people,” Dylan said. “Trying to make you think he’s just like you and you’re just like him. We all love the same things and we’re all in this together,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek.

The bard’s harshest rebukes were reserved for the press.

“Critics have always been on my tail since day one. Seems like they’ve always given me special treatment. Some of the music critics say I can’t sing. I croak. Sound like a frog. Why don’t these same critics say similar things about Tom Waits? They say my voice is shot. That I have no voice. Why don’t they say those things about Leonard Cohen? Why do I get special treatment? Critics say I can’t carry a tune and I talk my way through a song. Really? I’ve never heard that said about Lou Reed. Why does he get to go scot-free? What have I done to deserve this special treatment? Why me, Lord?

“Talk about slurred words and no diction. Why don’t they say those same things about them?”

“Why me, Lord?” Dylan said. It’s a refrain he would repeat, chorus-like, several times throughout the speech—a subtle nod to Kris Kristofferson, who wrote a song of the same name.

At the close of his speech, Dylan lavishly thanked Musicares and talked about how the worthy organization had come to his friend Billy Lee Riley’s aid when the rockabilly pioneer died impoverished five years ago. He suggested in no uncertain terms that Riley was well-deserving of the honor, even posthumously.

“He did it with style and grace,” Dylan said. “You won’t find him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s not there. Metallica is. Abba is. Mamas and the Papas—I know they’re in there. Jefferson Airplane, Alice Cooper, Steely Dan—I’ve got nothing against them. Soft rock, hard rock, psychedelic pop. I got nothing against any of that stuff, but after all, it is called the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Billy Lee Riley is not there,” Dylan said. “Yet.”

The last time Dylan publicly suggested a course of action, Farm Aid was born.

In the years ahead, maybe even the months, look for Riley to find his way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When Bob Dylan talks, the world listens.

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Watch Bob Dylan’s Willfully Strange Performance On David Letterman’s Penultimate Show

David Letterman’s last-ever Late Show will air tonight. But if Letterman somehow doesn’t make it to work today, last night’s show was a pretty good one to go out on. The episode had appearances from a couple of American legends who also happen to be perverse old kooks. Bill Murray, maybe Letterman’s favorite guest ever, showed up covered in cake, which just makes sense. And then, as the musical guest, Bob Dylan made his firstLetterman appearance since 1993. (It might’ve also been his first late-night TV performance in general since then? Dylan just doesn’t do late-night TV.) Dylan’s performance was the sort of theatrical oddness we’ve come to expect from the man at this stage of his life. After Letterman called him “the greatest songwriter of modern times,” Dylan proceeded to sing a song he didn’t write: The old standard “The Night We Called It A Day,” from his new Sinatra tribute album Shadows In The Night. The performance felt meandering and off, as recent-vintage Dylan performances do. And when Letterman came out to share the stage with Dylan at the end, Dylan pretty much glared at Letterman, looking like a disapproving grandma. It was all tremendously entertaining, and you can watch it below.

There are no announced guests for tonight’s show, so I guess you’ll just have to watch instead of waiting for the next-morning YouTubes.

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WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WHEN DYLAN PLAYED THE LES CRANE SHOW

We try to be as accurate as possible with our articles at Gaslight Records, but given the events we cover occurred at least 20 years before most of our writers were born, it can sometimes prove difficult to get every detail correct.

Luckily, there are people around who were actually present for the events in question and have continued to study them over the past 50 years. 

Peter Stone Brown is a singer-songwriter who has appeared on bills with artists such as Lucinda Williams and Roger McGuinn. He is also a freelance writer who, over the past 40 or so years, has interviewed Rick Danko, Al Kooper, Carl Perkins, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, Arlo Guthrie, Muddy Waters and Levon Helm.

Brown experienced firsthand many of the events we talk about at Gaslight Records, and as a Dylanologist, he is somewhat of an authority on all things Bob Dylan.

So when Brown got in touch to correct a mistake we made in an article last week, we replied, "you should write about it for us then."

Read some of Brown's other work here...

We feel privileged to be able to publish Peter's account of watching Dylan on the Les Crane Show.

Enjoy.

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Last Monday there was an article posted here on Gaslight Records-- "Bob Dylan Writing 'Like A Rolling Stone'" -- in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the song being recorded. The premise of the article, which dealt with the mixed reception of Dylan’s latest and still very new album Bringing It All Back Home, was a bit off the mark, especially the part concerning TV host Les Crane.

In this article, Sam Pethers wrote:

“The general feeling toward Dylan's new work was well capitulated during an interview on the Les Crane Show in February 1965. In talking about Dylan's songwriting skills, Crane said, "For those out in the audience that might not know all of the songs you've written just name a few of the big ones." Dylan reluctantly replied, "Ohhhh, Subterranean Homesick Blues", to which Crane quickly interjected, "That ain't one of the big ones, how 'bout "Blowin' In The Wind"". The mention of "Blowin' In The Wind" received an ovation from the audience.”

Perhaps Sam based his writing on a transcript of the show as opposed to the audio recording (sadly, a video of this show does not seem to exist).

Listen below to the full interview.

LISTEN:

LES CRANE SHOW INTERVIEWBob Dylan

1965

00:00 / 14:48

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  LES CRANE SHOW INTERVIEW

  Bob Dylan1965

Dylan appeared on the Les Crane Show -- ABC’s answer to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson—broadcast from New York City on February 17, 1965. At the time of the show, no one, including Les Crane, knew of the existence of the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” A 45 rpm single of the song with “She Belongs To Me” (b side) would be released a couple of weeks later at the beginning of March, followed by the release of the album a few weeks after that.

I was lucky enough to watch the Les Crane Show the night Dylan was on. Dylan was rarely on TV back then, a practice he’s continued throughout his career. While there were other guests that night on the show, Dylan was the main guest. He sang two songs, debuting "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" at the beginning of the show, followed by "It's Alright Ma, (I'm Only Bleeding)" at the end, which Dylan had been performing during his concerts the previous autumn. On both songs, Dylan was accompanied by guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who was part of the New York City folk music scene, and previously had backed Dylan on "Corrina Corrina" onFreewheelin’. Langhorne played an acoustic Martin guitar, but he had a pickup in the guitar that provided an electric sound. Excepting duets, and a couple of very early appearances, Dylan always played solo. The show also revealed a new look for Dylan. Up to that point, Dylan’s concert attire was a suede jacket and blue jeans. OnLes Crane, he appeared wearing a suit--probably the same one he would wear on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home--and a white shirt with a snapped tab collar.

The rendition of "It’s All Over Now Baby Blue" joined two other songs in sounding suspiciously like rock and roll numbers: "I Don’t Believe You" and "It Ain't Me Babe" from Another Side of Bob Dylan, which was only six months old at the time of theLes Crane Show appearance.

After the first song, Dylan did something that never happened before or since: he sat down and talked, staying onstage the entire show. He was hysterically funny, and Les Crane played right along with him. So when Les Crane was trying to let his audience know who Bob Dylan was and what songs he had written, and Dylan said, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," which was right in line with other comments Dylan had made during the night, Crane just figured it was another joke. But no one knew Dylan wasn't kidding until a few weeks later when his new look and sound would be promoted in record stores across the US in the biggest campaign Columbia Records had launched so far. The campaign featured Dylan holding a Fender Stratocaster and wearing his iconic suit and shades. The image slogan read either, "No one sings Dylan like Dylan", or "Bob Dylan brings it all back home on Columbia Records."

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BOB DYLAN WRITING "LIKE A ROLLING STONE"

June 15th, 1965 - Bob Dylan arrived in New York City after a month of touring in Europe. Dylan had been very well received during his recent tours of the UK, US and Canada despite his album Bringing It All Back Home receiving mixed reviews.

The general feeling toward Dylan's new work was well captured during an interview on the Les Crane Show in February 1965. In talking about Dylan's songwriting skills, Crane said, "For those out in the audience that might not know all of the songs you've written just name a few of the big ones." Dylan reluctantly replied, "Ohhhh, Subterranean Homesick Blues", to which Crane quickly interjected, "That ain't one of the big ones, how 'bout "Blowin' In The Wind"". The mention of "Blowin' In The Wind" received an ovation from the audience.

The negative response to Dylan's new sound reportedly drove him to the brink of walking away from music altogether. In a 1966 interview with Playboy Magazine Dylan said, "Last spring I guess I was going to quit singing. I was very drained, and the way things were going, it was a very draggy situation..."

In all likelihood Dylan returned from his tour of Europe in early June 1965 and headed straight for Woodstock N.Y. where he began writing lyrics to a new song. He later described the lyrics he was writing as "this long piece of vomit, 20 pages long, and out of it I took "Like a Rolling Stone" and made it as a single. And I'd never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that that was what I should do ... After writing that I wasn't interested in writing a novel, or a play. I just had too much, I want to write songs."

Dylan quickly started putting together musicians to record "Like A Rolling Stone". He invited blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield to his house in Woodstock, later saying, "When it was time to record my record I couldn't think of anybody but him [Mike Bloomfield]".

Dylan and Bloomfield during the "Like A Rolling Stone" sessions.

Bloomfield retold the story of arriving at Dylan's Woodstock house: "The first thing I heard was "Like a Rolling Stone". I figured he wanted blues, string bending, because that's what I do. He said, 'Hey, man, I don't want any of that B.B. King stuff'. So, OK, I really fell apart. What the heck does he want? We messed around with the song. I played the way that he dug, and he said it was groovy."

Dylan during the "Like A Rolling Stone" recording session.

At some point in early June, Dylan visited the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington D.C.--located just around the corner from The White House--where he continued refining the lyrics to "Like A Rolling Stone" ahead of his recording session at Columbia Studios in NYC. During his stay in D.C. Dylan wrote the near finalised lyrics for "Rolling Stone" on four pieces of Roger Smith Hotel letterhead paper. These pieces of paper sold at a Sotheby's Auction in 2014 for two million US dollars.

The Sotheby's Auction in 2014 dated the lyric sheets to June 15th-16th. However, given that the song was recorded on these days it is more likely they were penned earlier. The lyrics Dylan wrote while in D.C had alternate chorus lines, including, "like a dog without a bone,", "it ain't quite real", "does it feel real", "shut up and deal", and "get down an' kneel".

Listen below to the original piano demo version of "Like A Rolling Stone" that Dylan played for the session musicians on June 15th,1965 at Columbia Studio A--799 Seventh Avenue, New York City.

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When Bob Dylan Went Electric

ENLARGE

Bob Dylan plays a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965. PHOTO: ALICE OCHS/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

By 

MARC MYERS

July 20, 2015 6:45 p.m. ET

52 COMMENTS

When Bob Dylan appeared at the Newport Folk Festival on the night of July 25, 1965, he had a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar around his neck. Three of his five backup musicians also took up electric instruments. Minutes into the first song, “Maggie’s Farm,” roughly a third of the 17,000 people in the audience began to boo. The media covered the rude reaction the next day.

Mr. Dylan couldn’t have wished for a better outcome. In the months ahead, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter was transformed from folk’s boy wonder into the poet equivalent of Elvis Presley. His newly released single “Like a Rolling Stone” would reach No. 2 on Billboard’s pop chart, while the album on which it appeared, “Highway 61 Revisited,” would climb to No. 3. For rock musicians, Mr. Dylan’s uncompromising lyrics and stripped-down delivery were a creative wake-up call.

By year’s end, the Beatles responded with “Rubber Soul,” and Mr. Dylan’s influence went viral. After 1965, the Beatles, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed and dozens of other ’60s rock musicians found the courage to write songs that reflected their own perspectives and aesthetics. By plugging in, Mr. Dylan had put a pin in pop and started rock’s singer-songwriter revolution.

Fifty years later, it’s hard to imagine what all the fuss was about at Newport. In recent years, folk fans and artists who were there have insisted, almost out of embarrassment, that the boos were in response to the sound system’s high volume and distortion, not Mr. Dylan’s electric band. But in truth, the outrage was more complicated and deeply rooted in folk’s anti-materialism, the music’s orthodoxy, and a snooty belief that pop-rock of the early ’60s was mindless.

As evidenced in the 2005 documentary “No Direction Home,” Mr. Dylan was shaken when he left the Newport stage after cutting his set short after three songs. But months later, he shrugged off the reaction, telling a print interviewer, “I think there’s always a little boo in all of us.” Nevertheless, for many in the Newport audience, Mr. Dylan “going electric” was an act of betrayal by a misguided schemer trying to pass himself off as a British invader.

Folk fans were on a mission in 1965. Many saw the music’s early-’60s boom as proof that folk was winning over young, college-educated adults in the fight against the Vietnam War, segregation and conformity. In their minds, the only obstacle to expanding folk’s appeal to teens was the infernal electric guitar.

Viewed by folkies as the instrument of cheaters, the electric guitar was considered a sexually charged shortcut that could be cranked up to mask a lack of ability and artistic integrity. While folk fans and musicians seemed to accept the electric guitar in the hands of black blues musicians, they clearly detested the instrument when played by white pop-rock bands singing silly love songs.

There also was a political component. To the folk fan, Mr. Dylan’s use of an electric guitar was an insult to folk’s elders and a brash power grab. Fans believed that legitimate folk musicians played acoustic instruments, which kept the focus on the emotional power of the lyrics and vocals. Early on, two of those elders—Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger—had even given Mr. Dylan their blessing.

But perhaps the final outrage was Mr. Dylan’s perceived ego. By playing a flashy Stratocaster in a black leather jacket and tight jeans while singing “Like a Rolling Stone,” Mr. Dylan touched a nerve. Since the Depression, American folk songs were largely about protest and the collective “them”—victims of economic misfortune and oppression. By contrast, Mr. Dylan’s new single was interpreted as a snarky upbraiding of a woman who in her prime “threw the bums a dime” but now, on the skids, found herself with no direction home. To many folkies, the lyrics seemed condescending and mean-spirited.

American folk had changed considerably since the music’s early days in the 1940s, when artists like Guthrie, Seeger, Lead Belly, Josh White, Cisco Houston and Susan Reed were selfless, left-leaning troubadours singing to raise public awareness about corruption, racism and injustice.

Unlike the blues—a personal expression of rural hardship—American folk became an urban call to action. As Elijah Wald notes in his recently published book, “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties,” folk “was not a particular sound or genre; it was a way of understanding the world and rooting the present in the past.”

Mr. Dylan’s rise in folk circles was rapid. He arrived in New York in January 1961 and by year’s end had a record contract with Columbia. In 1963 his “Blowin’ in the Wind” was a No. 2 pop hit for Peter, Paul & Mary, and by 1965 several of his songs were covered with chart success by pop-rock artists such as the Byrds, the Turtles and Sonny and Cher.

In June 1965, Mr. Dylan recorded “Like a Rolling Stone.” Originally planned as an acoustic waltz, Mr. Dylan decided on a rock beat instead—with Mike Bloomfield on electric guitar and Al Kooper on organ. The single was released on July 20.

Up at Newport on July 24, Mr. Dylan rehearsed an electric set with Bloomfield, Mr. Kooper and several members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, an electric blues ensemble. The next night, the stage’s sound system was cranked up. In addition to the boos that followed, Seeger reportedly was livid.

But despite the initial displeasure with Mr. Dylan’s amplified experiment, his fusion of folk and rock didn’t take long to catch on with fans. A month later, when he played an electric set at the Forest Hills Music Festival in Queens, N.Y., catcalls again went up in protest. But this time, something strange happened. As Mr. Dylan kicked off “Like a Rolling Stone,” the audience began to sing along.

Mr. Myers, a frequent contributor to the Journal, writes daily about music and the arts at JazzWax.com.

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Bob Dylan

Singer, songwriter

Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan is recognized worldwide for the impact he has had on rock music since his career began in the early 1960s, and he has maintained his popularity among fans and critics alike over the ensuing decades. Although known primarily for his caustic and candid lyrics that reveal a defiant stance on authority, politics, and social norms that was prevalent in America in the 1960s, Dylan's fans come from a variety of age groups, all of whom identify with the raw human emotion expressed in his lyrics. Dylan's own humanity was brought to the public's attention in May of 1997, when the legendary artist canceled a planned European tour and was hospitalized due to a serious health condition called pericarditis. Yet Dylan returned to the stage in August, and released Time Out of Mind to rave reviews. As further evidence of Dylan's broad appeal and the magnitude of his contributions to music, he performed in Bologna, Italy, in September of 1997, after receiving a special invitation from Pope John Paul II. The notoriously private artist revealed more of his personal life with a documentary film and autobiography published in 2005.

Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, to Abraham Zimmerman, a furniture and appliance salesman, and Beatty Stone Zimmerman. In 1947 the family moved to the small town of Hibbing, Minnesota, where Dylan spent an unremarkable childhood. He began writing poems at the age of ten, and as a teenager taught himself to play the piano, harmonica, and guitar. He appreciated a wide variety of music ranging from country to rock 'n' roll, and admired the works of Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Dylan played in many bands during his high school years, including the Golden Chords and Elston Gunn and His Rock Boppers, before enrolling at the University of Minnesota in 1959.

While he was a student at the University of Minnesota, the artist began performing as a folk singer and musician under the name Bob Dylan at such popular Minneapolis night clubs as the Ten O'Clock Scholar cafe and St. Paul's Purple Onion Pizza Parlor. Dylan soon became more involved with his musical career than with his studies, so he dropped out of school in 1960 and headed straight for New York City. The young performer's interest in New York City was based on his desire to become involved in the emerging folk music scene in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood, as well as his wish to meet his idol, folk singer Woody Guthrie. Dylan soon became a popular performer in Greenwich Village coffee houses and night clubs, and also managed to become a regular performer for Guthrie. The young Dylan quickly gained the respect and admiration of his peers in the folk music scene with his ability to compose his own melodies and lyrics at an astonishing pace. In 1961 he attracted notice outside of New York City's folk music scene when New York Times critic Robert Shelton witnessed one of his performances at a club called Gerde's Folk City and declared that Dylan was "bursting at the seams with talent."

Dylan was 20 years old when he released his self-titled debut album in 1962. Although most of the songs were cover tunes, Dylan did include two original compositions—"Song to Woody," a tribute to Guthrie, and "Talkin' New York." The album achieved limited success, and Dylan followed it in 1963 with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which contained more original songs that shared a common theme of protest. Two of the songs from Dylan's second album, "Blowin' In the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," became enduring anthems of the 1960s, helping to define the thoughts and feelings of the counterculture. As confirmation of Dylan's success, the renowned folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded a cover version of "Blowin' In the Wind" that rose to the number two spot on the pop music charts.

The Tide Changed

By the time Dylan released 1964's The Times They Are A-Changin', he had been thrust into the role of media spokesperson for a counterculture protest movement that sought to radically alter current social and political norms. This third album also contained the protest song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." At the time the album was released, however, Dylan began to express his growing pessimism about the counterculture's ability to affect change, and declared that he was uncomfortable with his role as the movement's mouthpiece. His next album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, further evidenced his disillusionment with the counterculture movement, containing extremely personal folk ballads and love songs rather than his trademark protest songs. In 1965 Dylan enraged his folk music following by performing on an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival (fans booed Dylan and his band off the stage), and by releasing Bringing It All Back Home, an album on which Dylan returned to his earlier musical influences of rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues. While the songs on this album remained critical of society, none contained any of the direct references to racism, war, or political activism that had marked his earlier works. The acoustic song "Mr. Tambourine Man" fromBringing It All Back Home was recorded in an electrified form by the popular 1960s band the Byrds, and reached the top of the pop music charts; by that time a new brand of music known as "folk rock" had become widely favored among young Americans.

For the Record …

Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, MN; name legally changed August 9, 1962; son of Abraham (a furniture and appliance salesman) and Beatty (Stone) Zimmerman; married Sara Lowndes, 1965 (divorced, 1977); children: Jesse, Maria, Jakob, Samuel, Anna.Education: Attended University of Minnesota, 1959–60.

Composed more than 500 songs since early 1960s; recorded with rock groups including The Band (1975), The Traveling Wilburys (with Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison, 1988 and 1990), and The Grateful Dead (1989); solo singer and musician in concerts since early 1960s, including appearances at Newport Folk Festival in 1962 and 1965, Woodstock Festivals in 1969 and 1994, and Live Aid benefit concert in 1985; issued new material on Time Out of Mind, 1997, and "Love and Theft," 2001; issued movie soundtrack, Masked and Anonymous, 2003; issued multiple entries in the "bootleg" series, from The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert in 1998 to The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home—The Soundtrack, 2005.

Awards: Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, Tom Paine Award, 1963; Grammy Award, Best Rock Vocal Performance, for "Gotta Serve Somebody," 1979; Rolling Stone Music Award, Artist of the Year (tied with Bruce Springsteen) for The Basement Tapes, 1975; and Album of the Year forBlood on the Tracks, 1975; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1988; Commander Dans L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres from French Minister of Culture, 1990; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 1991; Grammy Award for World Gone Wrong, 1993; Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust, Arts Award, 1997; Lifetime Achievement Award, John F. Kennedy Center honors, 1997; Grammy Awards, for Album of the Year, Best Male Rock Performance, and Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1998, all for Time Out of Mind.

Addresses: Record company—Columbia Records, 550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022-3211, website: http://www.columbiarecords.com, phone: (212) 833-8000. Website—Bob Dylan Official Website: http://www.bobdylan.com.

Dylan continued to record songs that fused his folk and rock influences, using mystical, ominous lyrics filled with imagery and allusion, and in 1965 he released Highway 61 Revisited. The album featured songs with themes of alienation, including the well-known "Like a Rolling Stone," which quickly rose to the number two spot on the Billboard singles chart. That same year Dylan married Sara Lowndes, a friend of his manager's wife. In 1966 Dylan released Blonde on Blonde, which polished the edgy, harsh rock sounds of Highway 61 Revisited and introduced music unlike any of its predecessors. Although he was wildly successful, Dylan was suffering from the strains of fame. In the 1971 biography Bob Dylan the artist described his feelings during that period of his life to author Anthony Scaduto: "The pressures were unbelievable. They were just something you can't imagine unless you go through them yourself. Man, they hurt so much." Similarly, in a 1997 interview with Newsweek's David Gates, Dylan asserted "I'm not the songs. It's like somebody expecting [William] Shakespeare to be Hamlet, or [Wolfgang von] Goethe to be Faust. If you're not prepared for fame, there's really no way you can imagine what a crippling thing it can be."

Knockin' on Death's Door

On July 29, 1966, at the peak of his popularity, Dylan's neck was broken in a near-fatal motorcycle crash. The accident left Dylan with time to recuperate and rest at his Woodstock, New York, home with his wife and their newborn son, Jesse. He began reflecting upon his religious beliefs and personal priorities, and wrote songs that reflected his newfound sense of inner peace and satisfaction. Many of these songs were recorded in 1967 with The Band and later released on the 1975 album The Basement Tapes, while others were released on Dylan's first album following the motorcycle accident, 1968's John Wesley Harding. This slowerpaced acoustical album was followed in 1969 by Nashville Skyline and in 1970 by Self Portrait and New Morning. These three albums were generally panned by the public, and Dylan was criticized harshly by his fans for what they perceived as his failure to comment on the harsh realities of the time, namely the Vietnam War and the struggle for racial equality and civil rights for African Americans.

Dylan's first album to reach the number one spot on music charts was his 1974 effort Planet Waves, which he recorded with The Band. Although it was not a critical success, the album led to a flood of interest in Dylan's 1974 tour of the United States, where audience demand for tickets far exceeded available seating. In 1974, following the tour, Dylan released Before the Flood, a two-album set of music recorded live during the tour; the album rose to number three on music charts.

While Dylan's musical career was on an upswing, his personal life was in a downslide, as he became involved in a bitter separation with Sara and a fierce custody battle over their children. Dylan's 1975 album Blood On the Tracks featured songs reflecting the sorrow and passion of his personal life at the time; "If You See Her, Say Hello" referred directly to the breakup of his marriage. Many critics hailed Blood On the Tracks as Dylan's best album since the 1960s, praising the artist's use of visual imagery to blur distinctions between reality and illusion. The album's searing songs about love and loss, including "Tangled up in Blue," "Shelter from the Storm," and "Idiot Wind," were well received by fans, and the album soon reached number one on the charts. Dylan's 1976 album Desire, which contained a mournful tune titled "Sara," also reached number one on the charts and achieved widespread success in both the United States and Europe.

Although Dylan's 1978 album Street Legal was unpopular with his fans, who feared that the performer's personal crises had interfered with his musical abilities, it did not prepare the fans for what was soon to follow. In 1978, while touring to support Street Legal, Dylan experienced a religious vision that he later asserted made him question his moral values and saved him from self-destructive behavior. Pronouncing his belief in fundamentalist Christianity, Dylan began to include in his music a concern with religious salvation and the end of the world. Many fans were unhappy with the artist's apparent attempts to persuade his listeners to adopt his religious philosophy, while others viewed the lyrics as similar to Dylan's earlier songs about social change and prophecy. Of the albums during his Christian period, only the 1979 album Slow Train Coming was a commercial success, largely due to the popularity of the Grammy Award-winning single "Gotta Serve Somebody."

Dylan Reinvented Himself

In 1983 Dylan released Infidels, an album in which he departed from his overtly religious themes and returned to more complex, emotionally subtle lyrics in songs such as "Jokerman" and "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight." The 1985 album Empire Burlesque displayed a wide range of musical sounds, from gospel to acoustic ballad. In the mid-1980s Dylan remained prominent in the public eye by performing with various other music stars, including superstar Michael Jackson, on the 1985 single "We Are the World," and at the Live Aid benefit concert, both of which were designed to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. Also in 1985, Dylan releasedBiograph, a five-album set that contained previously released material and "bootleg" (unreleased) recordings, and which also included Dylan's brief commentaries; the set was highly popular and proved a top seller.

The year 1988 marked the beginning of Dylan's collaboration with the Traveling Wilburys, a group that included veteran music stars George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. The group released two albums, 1988's Traveling Wilburys and Traveling Wilburys Volume 3—no second volume was ever recorded—in 1990. In 1988 Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was honored by noted rock star Bruce Springsteen, who commented during the induction ceremony that "Bob [Dylan] freed the mind the way Elvis [Presley] freed the body. He showed us that just because the music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual…. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and changed the face of rock and roll forever."

Another Close Call

In May of 1997 Dylan was stricken with a sometimes fatal fungal infection called histoplasmosis, which caused the sac surrounding his heart to swell, resulting in a condition known as pericarditis. He told Newsweek's David Gates, "Mostly I was in a lot of pain. Pain that was intolerable. That's the only way I can put it." Nevertheless, he began to recover, and performed again in August of that same year. In September he performed for Pope John Paul II—reportedly at the Pope's request—at a eucharistic conference in Bologna, Italy. And in December of 1997 he became the first rock star ever to receive Kennedy Center honors.

Dylan's album Time Out of Mind was released in September of 1997 and was greeted by rave reviews. The album brought Dylan three Grammy Awards—for Album of the Year, Male Rock Performance (for "Cold Irons Bound"), and Contemporary Folk Album. Critics declared that the artist had again managed to reinvent himself and provide his fans with a fresh sound. Time's Christopher John Farley praised the album, declaring that "Dylan has found purpose in his inner battle to reignite his imagination. Turning the quest for inspiration itself into relevant rock—that is alchemic magic." Newsweek contributor Karen Schoemer maintained that Time Out of Mind "is rewarding precisely because it's so outside the present. In an era defined by novelty hits and slick video edits, it's a reminder that music can mean something more: it can be personal, uncompromised and deeply felt."

Following Time Out of Mind, Dylan entered a new, expansive phase of his career, one that focused attention on his current musical output and broadened the understanding of his past achievements. In 1998 Columbia Records released The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. The two-disc recording, featuring an acoustic and electric set, was recorded at Manchester Free Trade Hall on May 17, 1966, and became one of the most renowned bootlegs in rock 'n' roll history. "By the mid-'70s," noted Bill Holland in Billboard, "the 'Albert Hall' bootlegs became a cultural touchstone for music fans of the hippie-era baby boomer generation."

Dylan waited until 2001 to release Love and Theft, his first album of new material since Time Out of Mind. The album received a warm reception from critics, and following on the heels of the Grammy-winning Time Out of Mind, represented a renaissance for Dylan. "With Love and Theft," wrote David Browne in Entertainment Weekly, "Bob Dylan's return to the land of the living is complete." Columbia also continued to release vault material, including The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975—The Rolling Thunder Review in 2002 and The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964—Concert at Philharmonic Hall in 2004.

In 2003 Dylan appeared in Masked and Anonymous, a film widely panned by critics. "Unfortunately," wrote Ethan Alter in Film Journal International, "I have to concede that the movie is largely a mess—a rambling, disjointed, semi-coherent hodgepodge that plays like a parody of a bad Dylan song."

Published Autobiography

In 2004 and 2005 Dylan, always protective of his personal privacy, wrote the first installment of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. He also agreed to participate in extensive interviews for Martin Scorsese's two-hour biographical Dylan documentary for PBS, No Direction Home. Since he first become popular in the mid-1960s, Dylan had allowed biographers and journalists to tell his story: now, with a book and a documentary, he would have his turn. Columbia seized the opportunity to release two discs worth of scattered demos, out-takes, and live recordings to accompany the documentary project. In 2006 Twyla Tharp's play "The Times They Are A-Changin," drawn from Dylan's songs, was slated to open at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, California.

While Dylan has always drawn concert audiences and maintained a loyal fan base, new recordings and vault releases following Time Out of Mind have energized longtime fans and introduced him to a new generation. "Forty-plus years into his never-ending career," wrote Browne, "Bob Dylan keeps throwing us curveballs."

Selected discography

Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1962.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963.
The Times They Are A-Changin', Columbia, 1964.
Another Side of Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1964.
Bringing It All Back Home, Columbia, 1965.
Highway 61 Revisited, Columbia, 1965.
Blonde on Blonde, Columbia, 1966.
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits I, Columbia, 1967.
John Wesley Harding, Columbia, 1968.
Nashville Skyline, Columbia, 1969.
New Morning, Columbia, 1970.
Self Portrait, Columbia, 1970.
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume II, Columbia, 1971.
Dylan, Columbia, 1973.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Columbia, 1973.
Planet Waves, Asylum, 1974.
Before the Flood, Asylum, 1974.

(With The Band) The Basement Tapes, Columbia, 1975.
Blood on the Tracks, Columbia, 1975.
Desire, Columbia, 1976.
Hard Rain, Columbia, 1976.
Street Legal, Columbia, 1978.
Bob Dylan at Budokan, Columbia, 1978.
Bob Dylan: Masterpieces, Columbia, 1978.
Slow Train Coming, Columbia, 1979.
Saved, Columbia, 1980.
Shot of Love, Columbia, 1981.
Infidels, Columbia, 1983.
Real Live, Columbia, 1984.
Empire Burlesque, Columbia, 1985.
Biograph, 3 vols., Columbia, 1985.
Knocked Out Loaded, Columbia, 1986.
(With the Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne) Traveling Wilburys, Warner Bros., 1988.
Down in the Groove, Columbia, 1988.
(With the Grateful Dead) Dylan and the Dead, Columbia, 1989.
Oh, Mercy, Columbia, 1989.
Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3, Warner Bros., 1990.
Under the Red Sky, Columbia, 1990.
Bootleg Series I-III, Columbia, 1991.
Good As I Been to You, Columbia, 1992.
World Gone Wrong, Columbia, 1993.
Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert, Columbia, 1993.
MTV Unplugged, Columbia, 1995.
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume III, Columbia, 1995.
Time Out of Mind, Columbia, 1997.
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert, Columbia, 1998.
Love and Theft, Columbia, 2001.
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975—The Rolling Thunder Review, Columbia, 2002.
(With multiple guests) Masked and Anonymous, Sony, 2003.
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964—Concert at Philharmonic Hall, Columbia, 2004.
Live at the Gaslight 1962, Columbia, 2005.
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home—The Soundtrack, Columbia, 2005.
Modern Times, Columbia, 2006.

Selected writings

Tarantula (prose), Macmillan, 1971.
Poem to Joanie, Aloes Press, 1972.
Words (poem), J. Cape, 1973.
Writings and Drawings (songs, poems, drawings, and writings), Knopf, 1973; expanded edition published as Lyrics: 1962–1985, 1985.
Renaldo and Clara (screenplay), Circuit Films, 1978.
Chronicles: Volume One, Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Sources

Books

Scaduto, Anthony, Bob Dylan, Grosset & Dunlap, 1971.

Shelton, Robert, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, Beech Tree Books/William Morrow, 1986.

Spitz, Marc, Bob Dylan: A Biography, McGraw-Hill, 1989.

Periodicals

Billboard, October 24, 1998, p. 52.

Entertainment Weekly, September 14, 2001; September 2, 2005.

Film Journal International, September 2003, p. 46.

New York Times, September 29, 1961.

Sing Out!, Summer 2004, p. 128.

Time, September 29, 1997, p. 87; April 12, 2004, p. 83.

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